This invention relates to crop harvesters known as mowers, mower-conditioners and windrowers and more particularly to attachments for such harvesters for combining the windrows from two passes of the harvester through the field into a "double" windrow.
The capacity of forage harvesters and balers has increased to the point where a single windrow does not fully utilize their capacity. In the past, the common practice has been to rake two windrows together once they are nearly dry. This provides the amount of crop needed in the windrow for the capacity of a forage harvester or a baler, but tends to accumulate rocks and other foreign objects in the windrow. In addition, raking causes leaf loss in legume crops resulting in poorer quality hay or forage.
There have been a number of proposals to provide a double windrowing attachment for conventional mowers, mower-conditioners and windrowers both of the pull-type and self-propelled variety. However, the proposed designs lack simplicity and ease of attachment and removal of the windrowing unit from the base harvesting machine. Attachment and removal of the windrowing attachment is desirable so that the operator may choose between operating the harvester as normally intended by laying a swath or a single windrow and using the attachment to combine the crop from two passes of the harvester through the field into a double windrow.
A second disadvantage is that the existing designs have not provided for adjustment of the crop discharge location to permit formation of either side-by-side or stacked double windrows depending upon harvesting conditions.